#MeToo and the Jesus Movement

The #MeTooMovement has opened up new interpretive possibilities within Christianity. It reminds us that, in the case of Scripture, meaning is not just in the text, ossified and waiting to be retrieved, but it is also, always something we inevitably bring to the text, as in a conversation.

In particular, it has enabled us to uncover a connection between Mary Magdalene, who was not believed, and many survivors of sexual assault.

But we can trace this scriptural thread back even further. Another Mary, the one who gave birth to Jesus, also was not initially believed when she explained the circumstances of her son’s conception. She, like many other women throughout history was not considered competent to interpret her own experience. Her survival also rested far too heavily upon her credibility to a man. If Joseph did not believe her, no one else would have either.

But this is not the only incredible truth Mary the Mother told: she testified to God’s unbreakable loyalty to the Jewish people and his equally unexpected preference for and alliance with the poor. It also was perhaps not a coincidence that she recited this improbable prophesy in the presence of another woman, her cousin Elizabeth.

In these ways, the #MeToo Movement adds new layers of meaning to the fact that women, including both Mary, Jesus’s Mother and Mary of Magdala, were the ones who stayed with Jesus to the very end of his life. They remained with Jesus even after crucifixion had discredited him in the eyes of the world.

Nor is it now surprising that the resurrected Jesus would first appear to MaryMagdalene. She believed when Jesus’ male apostles did not; she was unafraid and out in the open while they were huddled together in fear behind the closed doors of the upper room. And of course, despite her status as “apostle to the apostles,” the Catholic church recognizes only Jesus’ twelve male followers as true apostles and cites their maleness as a major reason why women cannot be priests.

The #MeToo Movement also focuses our attention on the uncomfortable fact that, simply by being crucified, Jesus experienced and assumed a feminized vulnerability to sexual violence. Although the gospels do not include sexual violence in their Passion narratives, historians note that in ancient Rome, crucified criminals were sexually violated routinely. Even Jesus’ nudity both on the cross and on the way to it qualify as forms of sexual degradation and abuse. On Good Friday, Jesus’ body also was penetrated, by spears and nails. This matters because, in his historical context, truly male bodies were supposed to penetrate; they were not penetrated. They inflicted violence upon and inside of other bodies; they did not receive such violence in their own.

The crucifixion thus exposes our gendered expectations of violence precisely by refusing to abide by them. Jesus is not in control of his body; he cannot say “no;” he has no consent to give. His powerless is used against him, evidence of his shamefulness and ignominy.

Jesus was put to death in shame at the hands of male crucifiers, but he rose in glory in the presence of a female companion.

So thought-provoking. Thank you for this. I am thinking about John’s record of Thomas being invited to touch the wounds of the transformed victim, and how that scene might in some way help a survivor of sexual violence get to a place of healing, where initiation of touch is invited by the victim and is a tender affirmation of/not ignoring of past wounds–they aren’t gone, but placed within a changed context and enabling intimacy. Do you think there is something important in that different level of penetration post-resurrection? And do you think it’s significant that a man is invited to do that touching, as a means of symbolic reparation that contemporary men might live into, as well? I think you’re right: there are so many more possibilities to be thinking about these stories given the movements our culture(s) are making. Thanks, Katie!

Yes! I love the connections you make here. I think they are spot on. I actually make a similar argument about the “doubting Thomas” story being instructive for how we ought to deal with our country and church’s past and present antiblackness supremacy in the opening to my book Christ Divided: Antiblackness as Corporate Vice. It’s here in the preface, which I believe you can read on Google books:

Katie, thank you for directing me to your work! Yes, I see how you’ve used this image of Thomas in the preface…such rich possibilities for relevance today and consideration of personal & communal/historical wounds. Thanks again!

Katie Grimes

Katie proudly hails from the great city of Marion, Ohio--home of Warren G. Harding, Norman Thomas, the Marion Power Shovel, and the world's largest outdoor popcorn festival. Her favorite theologian is Tupac Shakur, and she currently holds the position of assistant professor of theological ethics at Villanova University. Her favorite part of her job is getting to teach her students.

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